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Relativity Finally Meets Quantum Theory?
prion86 writes "Physisist Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara (try saying that 3 times fast) believes she has found a way to blend relativity with quantum theory. The article can be found on the Scientific American site."
The physicists who can make stuff like this comprehensible to laymen like me (like Stephen Hawkings) are the ones that really deserve a Nobel prize.
Yes, and it's disappointing that the article doesn't mention what her theory has to do with gravity, but just talks about the relativity bits.
"It's a beautiful thought: we each have our own universe. But there's a lot of overlap. "We mostly see the same thing," Markopoulou Kalamara explains, and that is why we see a smooth universe despite a quantized spacetime."
Personally I like this version of unified relativity but I'm very certain that there will be many nay-sayers concerning her metaphysical POV of light cones and spin networks as personal and individual interpretations of the universe... though it is really nice to hear a published physicist speak about overlapping collective conciousness and the impact on perceived physics of the universe.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
From the article:
Each spin network resembles a snapshot, a frozen moment in the universe. Off paper, the spin networks evolve and change based on simple mathematical rules and become bigger and more complex, eventually developing into the large-scale space we inhabit.
Is it just me or does this look a lot like what Wolfram suggested in "A new kind of science"?
This reminds me of a theory put forth by Stephen Wolfram in "A New Kind of Science" (or, possibly from someone else earlier). Imagine that the universe was actually a huge cellular automota, where every concievable location in space-time is a cell. If you start drawing lines between these cells, you get a network which is perhaps similar to the system described by the article.
What is interesting is that this can explain the "light cone" phenomenon as well. If we are given that a cell can only be affected by those cells adjacent to it in the network, there is a theoretical fastest response of a system, depending how often the "steps" of the automota occur, and how far reaching are these network edges. For example, if we had two nodes 3 edges away from each other in this great graph, it would take at least 3 "ticks" for either cell to affect the other. Perhaps this is the concept she's using, but with actual physical concepts instead of some abstract idea of cells?
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
If it turns out she's right, a whole new generation of scientist will grow up thinking that women are only good with kitchen-related things
only ignorant people think so even today.
STW for Emma Noether's and Lisa Mitner's stories.
(Lisa Mitner was like an underdog^2 : both a jewish and a woman
in the pre-Nazi regime. So off the Nobel went to who was very
probably the less-deserving coleague)
Working for necessity's mother.
Although you may feel that the measurement problem is solved by God observing the universe, that gives difficulties for the EPR paradox. If God is observing the universe, then every conceivable quantum quantity has a definite value, surely? But this is impossible, as there are numerous quantities that are not co-measurable. You could then argue that God is outside the rules of quantum mechanics, and hence can perceive what He damn well likes, but then you can't use Him within a quantum theory as an observer, as He is not observing in an acceptable manner to quantum mechanics.
Such a mentalistic approach to quantum mechanics is a fairly odd approach to take. For starters, it seems to be much more anthropocentric than we would usually like physics to be, indeed when Wigner first suggested a mentalistic theory of wave function collapse in the 1950s, people thought he had gone mad. The other problem is identifying exactly what kind of mind counts as an observer; does a rabbit observe? Maybe we want something more intelligent than that? How about a chimpanzee? If we start at this point, then we simply ask ourselves, how about if we made the chimpanzee a tiny bit less intelligent, an infinitessimally small amount less. Do we still want to allow him to be an observer? Of course we do. Now, let's repeat the process a near infinite number of times. What do we have? Something much less intelligent being an observer that we didn't initially want to be one. The same argument applies if we start from a human also. We have to define some threshold of intelligence, therefore. But this is hideously arbitrary and not the kind of pattern that we want to see in nature or in our scientific theories. The term observer is difficult to define, and does not, therefore, lend itself to inclusion in a well defined theory of physics. See my post on quantum observers for further complaints.
I'd like to see more stories like this on slashdot. It would be nice if we could spend more time contemplating real science and less time bashing microsoft.
I for one spend to much time being bitter at microsoft and not enough doing interesting things.
And they draw audiences, thus spreading the word.
actually they dont. why?
because tv cameramen routinely interview people based on their looks therefore i have grown up believing pretty people are stupid - therefore when i saw the picture i didnt read the article - cause i dont believe she has anything interesting to say.
so sexist remarks are very inappropriate.
The only bone I have to pick with you is that you don't seem to understand the concept of dimensions. In the 3rd dimension, there is no such thing as "THE 2nd dimension." The second dimension is an infinite array of 1st dimensions. The 3rd an infinite array of 2nd dimensions...etc. I took a course in cosmology 3 years ago and we covered the following:
1st dimension: Length
2nd dimension: Width
3rd dimension: Depth
4th dimension: Time
Einstein's whole basis for relativity was that an even occurs at a location that is described in 4 dimensional coordinates. That event is then propogated at the speed of light throughout all four dimensions. Two different observers located at different points in space-time actually witness different versions of the event based on there RELATIVE location and velocity RELATIVE to the event.
Just to make your heads hurt, understand that 1 second is now defined as the time it takes light to travel ~3.0x10^8 meters. Since the speed of light is defined as ~3.0x10^8 m/s, the units and values cancel out to read that the speed of light is simply 1...no units. This makes the math quite easy, but is a b!7ch to rationalize in your head when you try and apply it to a real world event.
Also, the article did not say that being outside the universe would make everything clear. It said that with respect to quantum theory, the observer is genarally located outside of the space of the object that is being observed. As we presently do not know how to be located "outside" of the universe, we just have to accept that, not only can there be multiple observers, but they can also be observing from the inside of the very object they are observing. The quantum implications of this are in itself, enough to give anyone a really bad headache.
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
What about this one ? It may not be miss universe anymore, it may not be the easiest person to live/work with (I work in another department of the same university and we actively hate anyone from her department), but she is a very fine physics professor.
Great references thank you.
:-)
One question that interests me is, if the Universe as a whole is subject to quantum uncertainty - does that mean that if my light cone does not intersect with someone elses - that they may be living in a universe with different physical laws and constants?
Also when looking at the quantum problem of existance and observation -
What amazes me as an electronics engineer, is that no one anywhere seems to be thinking about the implications of the energy content of the meaning of a message.
Shannons law explains how much energy is needed to encode a certain message. But it never seems to be extended into thinking about the realm of meaning.
How much, if any, energy does it take to encode the meaning of a message - When I read a message and it means something, is that a different situation from reading a message which does not mean anything. Its too long ago since I did my maths and quantum mechanics for me to figure out if this is a silly question, I'd love to know the answer though.
I continue sitting here looking at the box with my cat in it. Wondering whether the text message it just sent me from its mobile phone asking for more food - means that it is still alive
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
This is essentially the Everett interpretation, where everything is a relative state, within the overall state vector of the universe, there are relative states which roughly define different macrorealms, which we take to be the universe, but no collapse has occurred and the world where the cat is not dead (assuming it died in our macrorealm) is just as real.